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Finishing touches: "The skin goes over the drum shell and wraps around these rings at the top," Perz-Edwards said, demonstrating with a 13-by-26-inch drum. Three ropes tied with what's called a Mali weave circle the top and bottom and also run vertically, to create 1,400 pounds of pressure pulling on the head. Perz-Edwards rigged a machine to help tighten the ropes, using his leg for power along with his hands. "It's a little bit like a Stairmaster. Every serious drum maker does something like this." If the cord is not white, it's because he hand-dyed it. He used his grandmother's old sewing machine to make cloth covers with plastic and foam liners to protect the skins. Along with drums, Perz-Edwards makes a variety of other smaller instruments, including a frog clockers, shakers, thumb pianos, and krins, or log drums. This summer he's been designing a marimba with glass keys.

Back in business: Perz-Edwards, a stay-at-home-dad, took last year off when the children needed more attention. Now that they can play on their own (the younger girl is 2), he gets to play some too. He recently joined the African drum group Rhythmicity, out of Cary, and is music director for Tekere Duafe, a Durham-based African Dance and Theater Company. He also started, in 2000, River Rhythms, a community percussion choir out of the Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Durham. Last year he established a Web site and is now selling drums online. He hopes to push that concept further and attend more shows once the girls are in school. At some point, he'd like to hire an apprentice. "Everything sells," Perz-Edwards said, grateful that he can make a living doing what he loves. "Right now my limiting factor has been how many drums can I produce."

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